Career Services and Placement Feature: New Year, New Me Setting Goals and Plans

By Minah Kaburu

We take this opportunity to welcome you all back to campus for the 2019 Spring semester. Our office is available to partner with you as a student, undergraduate or graduate, and alumni to offer advice for choosing your major, exploring career options, connecting students with inspiring career related experiences. Our advisors are on hand to assist you whether you are just beginning to discover your skills, interests and values or if you are transitioning into your first job or developing your career.

As we start the year, we would like to encourage you to develop goals that will set you on track for your career. In order to achieve a successful and fulfilling career, defining your goals and developing a strategy to realize them is important. With this, you are able to plan out what club to join, what activities to volunteer in, what departments to assist in within the school that can get you closer to achievement of your goals in the short term or long term.

Tips on career goal setting

  • Define what success means to you as you create specific goals that you want to achieve in the short or long term.
  • Let your goals be measurable and specify how you will know that you are heading to the right or wrong direction.
  • Ensure that the goals are achievable within the time that you have set them.
  • Be realistic with your goals to avoid setting yourself up for failure, discouragement and giving up along the way.
  • Be flexible in what you involve yourself in. There may be different experiences and skills you may amass on the journey to achieving your goals that may not have been in your initial plans but can bolster your efforts.
  • For each of the goals develop an action plan that will support the attainment of goals
  • (https://www.thebalancecareers.com). For instance;
  • Plan to develop or update your CV with real time information, activities, roles and organizations that you have worked.
  • Request for recommendation letters from key people supporting your search or development efforts.
  • Monitor job advertisements through Careerlink, Career office emails, LinkedIn etc., and apply to those that match your skills and experiences. Take note of deadlines for application job applications.
  • Attend any events, activities or get additional training in your career interest areas that will give you an edge in terms of your knowledge and skills.
  • If you are contacted for an interview, schedule ahead with the Career Office for a mock interview that will allow you to practise and get guidance, feedback or an insight into what you may be faced with at the actual interview.

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